The Art of Modding: Installing an 80s-Style Screen on a Retro Console

As I began this project, I knew it wouldn't be easy. I was working with a cheap suitcase-like case that I had picked up, and I didn't want to make a big slip. The case was like the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console, and I was determined to get it up and running.

To start, I needed to remove all the old parts from the inside of the console. I carefully took everything out, making sure not to damage any of the components. If you have a speed-type razor blade, it's great for scraping off old adhesive residue, almost like a sander. This helped me get rid of the sticky adhesive that was holding some of the parts in place.

Next, I removed the rubber gaskets from the case and the console. It was tricky to remove them without scratching the screen, which had been ripped apart earlier. I used my fingernail to carefully pry them off, making sure not to damage the screen further. The rubber gaskets were only available with your fingernail so that you wouldn't scratch anything else.

After removing the old parts, I realized that the new screen was probably stuck in place due to its adhesive properties. To avoid damaging it, I laid it down on a flat surface and gently picked it up, making sure not to apply too much pressure. This ensured that the screen didn't crack or break.

Now that the screen was removed, I could install the new one. The process involved carefully cleaning the area where the new screen would be placed. Once everything was clean, I began assembling the console. However, this was the hardest part of the project – soldering the red wire to the tiny leg on the second unit.

To solder the wire, I heated up my iron and carefully bent it into place. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go smoothly as planned, and the wire didn't fit properly at first. After re-soldering it, the connection was finally secure.

The final step was installing the rubber pads to make sure there were no mistakes when assembling the console. Once everything was in place, I could finally turn on my retro console and enjoy some of its older games. In my opinion, this console should have been built with a more robust design.

Overall, this project was a labor of love, and I'm glad I got to share it with you. If you're interested in modding your own retro consoles or learning about other mods like lithium recharging, be sure to subscribe and like my channel for more content.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys welcome back to another episode the last game hunter and today is pretty exciting for me because I finally got all the parts to do something that I've been wanting to do for a long time I want this screen in this but let me get to the point here a lot of people like this form factor mainly because it's design is so much better and wider for especially some growing up person like myself to play games but it has a downside well the downside is this I don't even know if you can catch this on camera but really and then they made this oh yeah so what am I gonna do I'm gonna put this screen in this unit let me show you what you need well okay guys so what we're gonna do first off you need a soldering iron you do not need a big station like this but at least a soldering iron I'm gonna say with a decent fine tip and the reason for the soldering iron is the special cable you need and I'll leave links below to where I got it that's one wire on it that needs to be soldered to the main board so you're gonna need a soldering iron just for that nothing major any soldering iron I'd like to say from RadioShack and of course you're going to need your screen now you can buy screens off eBay or Amazon or whatever I think there are Chinese screen a lot of people have done reviews on them and they are not as good they do not quite have the vibrance and the quality of the Nintendo screen so I went against it and I was in a local pawn shop and I already have the Spongebob 8 with a AGS I guess you call it a GS 101 and I bought another one they got it for like 40 bucks screen is worth like 75 so now I have Parts I mean everything in this is working so I can use this for another repair or build down the road that's gonna be all so I'm going to keep it because I did buy a new housing and maybe just maybe I'll try putting this screen in here just for stupidity I don't know I'm dumb like that and of course you're going to need your old unit now one thing that you will need to find out and you can see mine's decrepit it's got the battery cover missing so this was perfect timing for my other thing so in here buried in here you probably don't know if you can see it quite well it's gonna have some numbers in here that's gonna tell you what pin so whether it's a 40 pin or a 32 pin cable you need to order okay so it's just in here now most places where you're ordering the thing you can actually just google it or they have a chart telling you what to look for so time to get rid of this shell as well right so I went out and I bought a brand new exact replica of this casing so I'm not changing it in any weird way or Ford I'm just bringing it back to original with a upgraded screen you can do whatever you want I mean you can order there's all kinds of cool ones you can get a Nintendo Super Nintendo looking one with the color scheme you can get red giving it orange you can get blue even your purple you can get you can custom paint it you ever you want I just decided that I only have one of these the see-through in this color I ordered the exact same body I think these are true Nintendo Oh am i believe the manufacturers that were making these after the demise of this it's not being made anymore decided to keep continuing to put these out because the molds already made why not you're gonna need a Phillips screwdriver now this is a kit I bought right here with the Phillips and a try so it's a wide screwdriver from the screws so they're in these nintendoes I like to have one of these around just in case because I think mic tool much better quality and I don't really want to get my other tools out to put tips into the the trial now one other thing that you're going to need and I'm sorry but you will you don't really need this kit but I got this kids like $15 I've Canadian Tire in Canada I'm sure if you're in the States or wherever you are your local Canadian Tire local whatever hardware store whatever they'll have a second would have some blades and you usually have these little kits this is $15 Canadian I'll put a link to the Canadian store but I mean just to give you an idea anyway if you're not Canadian watching the video and you're gonna need this and I'll show you why that's the video goes on have the clock this microfiber cloth well as I'm working on a brand new housing I want to keep it protected I want this unit to a brand new forever I'm making a mod and sacrificing a 101 you know I want to keep it protected so guys I enjoy doing mods I'm gonna be doing a lot of mods in the future I got some game gear mods coming game gear board repair videos coming and so on and this is stuff that I do on the side that nobody really gets to know me for and I'm gonna start putting them on video because I do a lot of it so guys what's out further ado let's get this screen in this and get it looking brand new again okay guys so for starters we're going to take this apart and get our lovely screen we need right this old spongebob again it's looking pretty decrepit I actually did keep the better one of the two and this actually was my old one so I got an upgrade picking up the other one and here's why you have your own screwdriver these stupid screwdriver kits I have bits to like that I bought just for doing consuls and figure out where I put those of course here's your battery so if anything no I gained a lifting battery that's good because this one seems to be good there's your motherboard guys so here's your cartridge slot it's also a good time to when I take the other one apart to clean all this up and I'll give it a little bit of a what do you want to call it a alcohol bath and I think there's a couple screws here is it just one nope there's three one two three all right so now here's that cable we do not want to hurt okay with a buttons falling out need to unplug this shorten the video real quick if I cut the cable right now wouldn't it there we go guys there's the SP motherboard here this speaker speaker actually just a neat all these are really dirty this would have to be cleaned if I kept it if speaker just kind of goes right here in the contacts just to make contact with the motherboard literally just by being laid in place something that cool in this case guys I'm going to use a little blue old blue hasn't had much time that wasn't a field lately flying not every day I get screws extra screws or anything for these kind of things when I need them Wow so five screws in the screen not four because I guess they felt like four wasn't good enough on a tiny screen like this damaging anything what a great idea there's a little screw inside here guys to take this off again I'm just a tutorial I guess in a weird way of just how to remove all this because this is the cheapest option to get the screen on take off one of the layers because it's gonna be too thick if you don't leave one on take one off now we have our brand new not new screen over here okay guys part two of us we need to care this guy down bad shape I bother yard sale a few years ago it works just horrible condition I knew one day I would do something like this thanks annoying the new housing even has this in it so you don't even need to take that out in this first things first let's unplug this video cable Bowl cable is unplugged take all this apart I'm going to use these parts anymore of all brand new everything even these slide things and everything comes apart on these things but I do need this mainboard one screw here there we go so now we have our motherboard cool see it's green here and the different colored it right here and I think that's because you see it on the other side of the of this unit that's kind of actually so this is what we need to keep this unit okay so here's the new face guys and the reason why you really need the razor blades is for this on the inside here there's a strip that goes down here and comes across here you need to shave that all out or the new screen will not fit okay so I remove the screen to show you something I'm markered these pieces right here those are the pieces that I had to chop off in the new one to make the new screen fit okay so that's why you need to raise your blades and you want to be very cautious and slow one you don't want to cut yourself open to do you don't want to make a big slip and especially I was cheap suitcase like this you're gonna see it right so you want to take all this out nice and slowly and just if you have a a speed type razor blade to the end it's great for just doing that almost like a sander you know just scraping it down to the flatness and you end up with this here so all gone now hopefully I have it down enough by a little tiny bit of Ridge here we're going to find out very very little and let's put this together as you can see here I took that rubber off only use your fingernail you slip anything else you're gonna scratch the screen that you just ripped apart a 1o1 SP four or even if you paid 75 bucks for it done so use your fingernail only it comes off very easily just take your time comes up very easily and now it fits right in there so what we're gonna do next oh by the way after I took that rubber thing off I realized that she was probably done it after it's very sticky so if you lay it down on your tent on your desk you might crack it picking it up so you'll see me doing this right now so now we're going to install this so we can put this in and feel safe about doing that now you'll see I move you can see it in the camera but you'll see like this all kinds of crap scratched up there I had to take that stuff up now the moment of truth is it all going to disappear and my answers have been answered yes and now I have the new screen in my brand new shell they install your rubber pads now just to make it easier so there's no little mistakes happening when you put it all together okay guys so here's the hardest part we have to solder this red wire to that little tiny leg right there on the I'm gonna call it the second unit and you'll see there's three legs one two three just inside one right here no one if you're getting on camera very well unfortunately my camera is not a good camera that I have I don't know how to use it so I can't really get in there yet but oh I'll take a picture or I'll have put a picture up if I can do it and show exactly the contact there just let my iron heat up here it should be ready any minute my eyes aren't as good as they used to be so I need a magnifier so it's soldered up it didn't quite go as smoothly as I wanted the wire wasn't tints proper I had to get my solder out and do that it was actually so small my visions not like he used to be as I said earlier it was kind of hard to get that in there but it's done now yeah piece of I guess the painters tape underneath here it was a thing that I can rip easy and get in just to cover there's a resistor here and there's another you know another one of these right next to it and running the wire a little bit of a bend you don't want it too get in the way and spark one can only hope that in there the first time everything just wants to fall out every time I touch something screws are in pretty nice nice there we go sonic our little friend is holding his enemy and Nintendo product but this Nintendo product has been a life given by adding an 80s 101 screen to it check the quality out on this it is amazing I'm so happy I can't wait to play some of these older games and in my opinion the way the machine should have been built so guys I'm hoping down the road I can do a lithium recharging mod because I'll be the only thing wrong with this system would be putting double A's in it but anyway guys till next time it has been sort of fun it's usually always a pain there's stuff you don't get to see and definitely guys please like share subscribe let me know what you think of this type of video you want to see more of these videos and if you do I'll be glad to do them I have a lot more mods in mind of game here and so on and so forth so just let me know I'll continue to do them on video for you guys until next time guys game overhi guys welcome back to another episode the last game hunter and today is pretty exciting for me because I finally got all the parts to do something that I've been wanting to do for a long time I want this screen in this but let me get to the point here a lot of people like this form factor mainly because it's design is so much better and wider for especially some growing up person like myself to play games but it has a downside well the downside is this I don't even know if you can catch this on camera but really and then they made this oh yeah so what am I gonna do I'm gonna put this screen in this unit let me show you what you need well okay guys so what we're gonna do first off you need a soldering iron you do not need a big station like this but at least a soldering iron I'm gonna say with a decent fine tip and the reason for the soldering iron is the special cable you need and I'll leave links below to where I got it that's one wire on it that needs to be soldered to the main board so you're gonna need a soldering iron just for that nothing major any soldering iron I'd like to say from RadioShack and of course you're going to need your screen now you can buy screens off eBay or Amazon or whatever I think there are Chinese screen a lot of people have done reviews on them and they are not as good they do not quite have the vibrance and the quality of the Nintendo screen so I went against it and I was in a local pawn shop and I already have the Spongebob 8 with a AGS I guess you call it a GS 101 and I bought another one they got it for like 40 bucks screen is worth like 75 so now I have Parts I mean everything in this is working so I can use this for another repair or build down the road that's gonna be all so I'm going to keep it because I did buy a new housing and maybe just maybe I'll try putting this screen in here just for stupidity I don't know I'm dumb like that and of course you're going to need your old unit now one thing that you will need to find out and you can see mine's decrepit it's got the battery cover missing so this was perfect timing for my other thing so in here buried in here you probably don't know if you can see it quite well it's gonna have some numbers in here that's gonna tell you what pin so whether it's a 40 pin or a 32 pin cable you need to order okay so it's just in here now most places where you're ordering the thing you can actually just google it or they have a chart telling you what to look for so time to get rid of this shell as well right so I went out and I bought a brand new exact replica of this casing so I'm not changing it in any weird way or Ford I'm just bringing it back to original with a upgraded screen you can do whatever you want I mean you can order there's all kinds of cool ones you can get a Nintendo Super Nintendo looking one with the color scheme you can get red giving it orange you can get blue even your purple you can get you can custom paint it you ever you want I just decided that I only have one of these the see-through in this color I ordered the exact same body I think these are true Nintendo Oh am i believe the manufacturers that were making these after the demise of this it's not being made anymore decided to keep continuing to put these out because the molds already made why not you're gonna need a Phillips screwdriver now this is a kit I bought right here with the Phillips and a try so it's a wide screwdriver from the screws so they're in these nintendoes I like to have one of these around just in case because I think mic tool much better quality and I don't really want to get my other tools out to put tips into the the trial now one other thing that you're going to need and I'm sorry but you will you don't really need this kit but I got this kids like $15 I've Canadian Tire in Canada I'm sure if you're in the States or wherever you are your local Canadian Tire local whatever hardware store whatever they'll have a second would have some blades and you usually have these little kits this is $15 Canadian I'll put a link to the Canadian store but I mean just to give you an idea anyway if you're not Canadian watching the video and you're gonna need this and I'll show you why that's the video goes on have the clock this microfiber cloth well as I'm working on a brand new housing I want to keep it protected I want this unit to a brand new forever I'm making a mod and sacrificing a 101 you know I want to keep it protected so guys I enjoy doing mods I'm gonna be doing a lot of mods in the future I got some game gear mods coming game gear board repair videos coming and so on and this is stuff that I do on the side that nobody really gets to know me for and I'm gonna start putting them on video because I do a lot of it so guys what's out further ado let's get this screen in this and get it looking brand new again okay guys so for starters we're going to take this apart and get our lovely screen we need right this old spongebob again it's looking pretty decrepit I actually did keep the better one of the two and this actually was my old one so I got an upgrade picking up the other one and here's why you have your own screwdriver these stupid screwdriver kits I have bits to like that I bought just for doing consuls and figure out where I put those of course here's your battery so if anything no I gained a lifting battery that's good because this one seems to be good there's your motherboard guys so here's your cartridge slot it's also a good time to when I take the other one apart to clean all this up and I'll give it a little bit of a what do you want to call it a alcohol bath and I think there's a couple screws here is it just one nope there's three one two three all right so now here's that cable we do not want to hurt okay with a buttons falling out need to unplug this shorten the video real quick if I cut the cable right now wouldn't it there we go guys there's the SP motherboard here this speaker speaker actually just a neat all these are really dirty this would have to be cleaned if I kept it if speaker just kind of goes right here in the contacts just to make contact with the motherboard literally just by being laid in place something that cool in this case guys I'm going to use a little blue old blue hasn't had much time that wasn't a field lately flying not every day I get screws extra screws or anything for these kind of things when I need them Wow so five screws in the screen not four because I guess they felt like four wasn't good enough on a tiny screen like this damaging anything what a great idea there's a little screw inside here guys to take this off again I'm just a tutorial I guess in a weird way of just how to remove all this because this is the cheapest option to get the screen on take off one of the layers because it's gonna be too thick if you don't leave one on take one off now we have our brand new not new screen over here okay guys part two of us we need to care this guy down bad shape I bother yard sale a few years ago it works just horrible condition I knew one day I would do something like this thanks annoying the new housing even has this in it so you don't even need to take that out in this first things first let's unplug this video cable Bowl cable is unplugged take all this apart I'm going to use these parts anymore of all brand new everything even these slide things and everything comes apart on these things but I do need this mainboard one screw here there we go so now we have our motherboard cool see it's green here and the different colored it right here and I think that's because you see it on the other side of the of this unit that's kind of actually so this is what we need to keep this unit okay so here's the new face guys and the reason why you really need the razor blades is for this on the inside here there's a strip that goes down here and comes across here you need to shave that all out or the new screen will not fit okay so I remove the screen to show you something I'm markered these pieces right here those are the pieces that I had to chop off in the new one to make the new screen fit okay so that's why you need to raise your blades and you want to be very cautious and slow one you don't want to cut yourself open to do you don't want to make a big slip and especially I was cheap suitcase like this you're gonna see it right so you want to take all this out nice and slowly and just if you have a a speed type razor blade to the end it's great for just doing that almost like a sander you know just scraping it down to the flatness and you end up with this here so all gone now hopefully I have it down enough by a little tiny bit of Ridge here we're going to find out very very little and let's put this together as you can see here I took that rubber off only use your fingernail you slip anything else you're gonna scratch the screen that you just ripped apart a 1o1 SP four or even if you paid 75 bucks for it done so use your fingernail only it comes off very easily just take your time comes up very easily and now it fits right in there so what we're gonna do next oh by the way after I took that rubber thing off I realized that she was probably done it after it's very sticky so if you lay it down on your tent on your desk you might crack it picking it up so you'll see me doing this right now so now we're going to install this so we can put this in and feel safe about doing that now you'll see I move you can see it in the camera but you'll see like this all kinds of crap scratched up there I had to take that stuff up now the moment of truth is it all going to disappear and my answers have been answered yes and now I have the new screen in my brand new shell they install your rubber pads now just to make it easier so there's no little mistakes happening when you put it all together okay guys so here's the hardest part we have to solder this red wire to that little tiny leg right there on the I'm gonna call it the second unit and you'll see there's three legs one two three just inside one right here no one if you're getting on camera very well unfortunately my camera is not a good camera that I have I don't know how to use it so I can't really get in there yet but oh I'll take a picture or I'll have put a picture up if I can do it and show exactly the contact there just let my iron heat up here it should be ready any minute my eyes aren't as good as they used to be so I need a magnifier so it's soldered up it didn't quite go as smoothly as I wanted the wire wasn't tints proper I had to get my solder out and do that it was actually so small my visions not like he used to be as I said earlier it was kind of hard to get that in there but it's done now yeah piece of I guess the painters tape underneath here it was a thing that I can rip easy and get in just to cover there's a resistor here and there's another you know another one of these right next to it and running the wire a little bit of a bend you don't want it too get in the way and spark one can only hope that in there the first time everything just wants to fall out every time I touch something screws are in pretty nice nice there we go sonic our little friend is holding his enemy and Nintendo product but this Nintendo product has been a life given by adding an 80s 101 screen to it check the quality out on this it is amazing I'm so happy I can't wait to play some of these older games and in my opinion the way the machine should have been built so guys I'm hoping down the road I can do a lithium recharging mod because I'll be the only thing wrong with this system would be putting double A's in it but anyway guys till next time it has been sort of fun it's usually always a pain there's stuff you don't get to see and definitely guys please like share subscribe let me know what you think of this type of video you want to see more of these videos and if you do I'll be glad to do them I have a lot more mods in mind of game here and so on and so forth so just let me know I'll continue to do them on video for you guys until next time guys game over